Having spent a large part of my career in the financial services space driving traditional business growth, using gaming to achieve business goals was not a cause I expected to be championing. Gaming was always a personal interest, but the business parallels only became apparent after we started experimenting with service engagements for enterprises. Given the planet anyway spends 3 billion hours a week playing games, the challenge was really to figure out how learning could fit in that construct.

We formed QuoDeck in 2010 to bring gaming into learning for enterprises. Having started with some elementary game engines and simulations, QuoDeck quickly moved on to make an omnipotent system built with the changing business environment in mind. QuoDeck’s platform today is one of the most powerful and engaging learning platforms in the world, catering to enterprise requirements for mobile learning. And as a leading player in this category, our advice to new entrants is to stay true to course, understand that the market is huge and that innovation is the key.

Mobility is here to stay

Mobile learning was just about appearing on the horizon in India when we entered the market. In fact, it was still at a nascent stage globally as well. While enterprises saw the demographic shift coming, the speed at which the device shift happened took everyone by surprise. Within a period of 3-4 years, millennial users had junked tablets and wouldn’t access their desktops or laptops for anything but sit-down work. They wanted everything on their mobile – on-demand, anytime, anywhere. Being a generation bred on Twitter, Facebook, and YouTube, they also wanted content and technology that was easy-to-use, visually appealing and in bite-sized pieces. The learning evolution that needed to happen in enterprises was phenomenal and existing products just weren’t prepared for this. Mobility as a trend forced a change in behavior, technology, content creation and consumption patterns across all strata of business.

There is always an element of luck in startup success and we were no different. Perhaps being at the right place at the right time with the right thought process is what its all about. QuoDeck has been at the forefront of this shift, shoulder-to-shoulder with enterprises looking to stay ahead of the curve.

Gamifying the world

Our personal insight of gaming being habit-creating and creating long-term associative memories, was the inspiration behind the approach we took. Countless times, behaviors and constructs learnt in gaming had been translated by us to address real-world problems with excellent results.

We had a learning curve here as well. Having played on consoles such as PlayStation and Xbox, we assumed the world was ready to deal with highly complex games and constructs. However, working closely with business heads, HR teams and the Learning & Development function, we learnt that hyper-casual games create the best impact from a learning perspective. This is because they are somewhat repetitive in nature, with a greater level of participation & addiction to ‘scoring’.

While we initially worked on gamification applications on functions such as marketing, research, and learning, we chose to go with learning as a primary focus. Having started in this category long before games became the buzzword of today, we were fortunate to be able to take a pole position and we hope to actually drive the future of gamification for learning in the enterprise. But there are still a lot of white spaces to go after in enterprise gamification.

For New Players

Gaming as a learning solution is so vast in its scope, that it can’t be characterized or identified with any particular industry or even a clutch of industries. Wherever there is widespread staff or skilling required, gaming solutions can take charge and lead the change. So, when new players come in, they must remember that competition comes in various guises and is very rarely with another player. You will end up competing for mindshare against the likes of video-on-demand platforms or search engines where users can find information and content at their fingertips. Knowing what creates pull is perhaps the only challenge you should worry about.

Look out for learning opportunities

Gamification as an industry has a widespread application with learning being only one of them. A space was created for us because existing products failed to keep pace with what was required – large entrenched players became irrelevant in a matter of months. Overnight, enterprises recognized that resistance against this changing paradigm was futile, and mindsets started changing. Gaming and mobility were no longer bad words.

It would be foolish of us to think that we cannot be on the other side of such a trend. Keeping your offering relevant and at the cutting-edge requires you to have an innovation engine, which stops for no one. This requires tremendous willpower and a staunch refusal to settle into a comfortable spot.

Corporate training is considered to be an essential business enabler. But are companies doing enough to keep their employees engaged during such training programmes? The seriousness with which companies usually go about such training in order to get maximum bang for their buck may make such programmes boring and tedious for the employees thus rendering them ineffective.

Tiring of being on the opposite side from what I always considered to be the more exciting side of things – the entrepreneur’s- I founded QuoDeck along with my husband in 2010. Today QuoDeck is one of the top products in this space with over 62,000 learners from 20+ companies using QuoDeck to learn. Globally, it is used by over 500 creators from 40 countries to create game-based mobile learning.

At HUL, an app created by Mumbai based QuoDeck (previously Ptotem) acts as a ready reckoner for their sales persons. “Basic training for bringing a sales person on board is provided in the app. We have evaluation points and an assessment is done after which a certification is offered,” Sikdar said.

The company describes the new QuoDeck 2.0 is the world’s first one-stop software as a service solution that integrates content, game and platform authoring. Content creators can now setup highly engaging games as platforms to teach their learners on their mobile devices or desktops.

Kohler Radio is an IVR-enabled learning platform, wherein audio messages are recorded and relayed in the form of a call to individual mobile phones, which the participants can listen to, take part in, learn and get assessed through a few objective questions asked after each session.

While Kamalika Bhattacharya, CEO, QuoDeck Technologies, says, “We, at QuoDeck are a company of gamers and that is reflected in pretty much everything we do, starting from arcade machines to board game afternoons to the monthly escape the room challenges. We care about our team above everything and that’s the belief we live by. They in turn, respect the thought and ensure that our clients and our brand get their very best.”